"Get some sleep," the bodyguard had ordered. "Tomorrow, you begin the road to jihad. Allah'-u-Akbar!"
"Allah'-u-Akbar," the young men responded as the driver left. They then chose their beds and gratefully turned in.
The first morning, they were rousted before dawn by Ajmaani.
"Where are we?" one of the sleepy men asked after roll call.
"That's not important," Ajmaani had replied. "You are not to ask questions unless it is to review what you will be taught. All that you need to know is that you have sworn your lives to jihad and that you have been specially selected to, God willing, carry out a very important martyr mission that will strike a crippling blow to your oppressor, your enslaver, the United States of America. Are you ready to become holy warriors of Islam?"
The young men of the Al-Aqsa Brigade had done their best to snap to attention as they shouted: "Allah-u-Akbar! Allah-u-Akbar!" Nobody back home had ever treated them with much respect, but now they were holy warriors of Islam, specially chosen.
They spent the next few weeks getting physically fit. Only one of the men—Abdalla's other friend, Abdul Raouf, a large, overweight young man—couldn't make it. It was difficult for him to shed the pounds and get in better shape.
Then one day, Raouf quit halfway through the obstacle course as he bent over and threw up. Seeing this, Ajmaani screamed for the others to halt and gather around the heaving man. "Are you quitting?" she shouted at him.
"Fuck this, I just need to catch my breath a minute," Raouf gasped.
The woman appeared not to hear him, or care. "You quit," she sneered. "What if your objective required you to cover that distance quickly or the entire mission would be a failure?"
"I'm doing my best," Raouf replied sullenly. "Maybe I'm just not cut out for this."
Ajmaani turned to the others. "What is the penalty for quitting?" she demanded.
No one answered. They'd all been told that the only way out of the brigade was death.
Realizing what she'd said, Raouf stood up with fear in his eyes. "I can go on now," he said and started to lumber off.
"You have two minutes to complete the obstacle course," Ajmaani shouted after him.
The big man stopped short. "Ain't no way," he complained. "Ain't nobody could do that."
The other members of the brigade looked at each other; the fastest, most able among them would have had difficulty completing the task. But Ajmaani held out her hand to one of the bodyguards, who handed her his 9 mm Glock semiautomatic. She leveled it at Raouf. "You now have less than two minutes," she said quietly.
With a cry of terror, Raouf took off running. He reached the far end of the course and started back, fear and desperation keeping his heavy legs moving. They could hear his breathing—big, ragged gulps that whistled in and out of his mouth—as he drew close and finally collapsed across the finish line. His fellow mujahideen smiled; Raouf was one of the friendlier members of the brigade, a dedicated student of the Qur'an and always willing to help the others with their studies.
Then Ajmaani looked at her watch and announced. "You were twenty seconds late," she snarled, crossing the few yards and kicking him as hard as she could in the ribs. Raouf screamed and rolled over on his back, blinking in the sun.
Ajmaani pointed the gun at his head. "Because this man quit, you were all killed by the Enemies of God," she shouted. "But worse than that, your mission failed and there is no place in Paradise for you. You are not martyrs, you are all failures."
Raouf began to cry. "I'm sorry," he apologized. "I'm sorry my brothers. I'll try harder."
"Try harder?" Ajmaani scoffed, her green eyes blazing. "Is that what you'll say the next time you quit and your 'brothers' die for nothing?" She turned back to the main group and held up the handgun. "Who will kill this quitter for me?"
The men looked at her in shocked silence, shifting back and forth from one foot to the other. She scowled as she looked from face to face.
"Is there no one who will strike this betrayer down for Allah?" Ajmaani demanded. She chose Suleiman. "You, Abdalla, you shoot him."
"I couldn't. He's my friend."
"Your friend just betrayed his oath to Allah," Ajmaani snarled. "Who do you choose, this fat pig or Allah? Shoot him for Allah!"
Abdalla stepped forward and accepted the weapon from her. It seemed so heavy; his hand fell to his side.
"Do it!" Ajmaani commanded.
Abdalla walked over to where Raouf had risen to his elbows and now begged for his life. "Sule," he cried. "We're friends. Please, I want to die as a martyr for God, not like this!"
"Kill him," Ajmaani hissed in his ear as she stepped up behind Abdalla. "Inshallah ... it's God's will."
Abdalla sighted down the barrel at the blubbering face of Raouf. "Kill him!" Ajmaani suddenly screamed in his ear. He pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. The gun didn't fire.
Ajmaani smiled. "I see it is time to begin weapons training," she announced as if it had only been a test. "You must first release the safety." She sidled up behind him, placing a hand on his shoulder while her other hand snaked along his arm that held the gun until her hand covered his. She pressed a little lever on the side of the gun. "The safety," she said softly in his ear. "Now, pull the trigger, Suleiman."
All Abdalla could think about was the pressure of her breasts against his back and her hips against his buttocks. It was easy to forget that he was pointing a gun at the head of a man pleading for his life. He only remembered when Ajmaani squeezed his finger and the gun roared.
In that moment, everything came back into focus. A neat dark hole appeared in Raouf's forehead at the same time blood and gore blew out the back of his skull.
Abdalla remained frozen in place, his arm extended, pointing the gun as a wisp of smoke escaped the barrel. Patting him on the shoulder, Ajmaani gently removed the weapon. She held the gun aloft and pointed her other hand at him.
"Behold, Suleiman Abdalla, a true warrior of Islam!" she shouted. "Without hesitation, he strikes down the Enemies of God. He has killed a man who would have failed you and prevented you from fulfilling your sworn duty to Allah! Blessing of Allah to Suleiman."
As he looked into the smiling eyes of the woman, Suleiman Abdalla believed that he had reached the defining moment of his life. He was no longer Justin Rhodes with a skin disease; he was Suleiman Abdalla, a warrior of God, and the new favorite of the beautiful Ajmaani.
As promised, Ajmaani began teaching them to use weapons—assault rifles, handguns, grenades, and knives. After just a few weeks, she told them they'd become an elite fighting force capable of taking on and defeating any enemy.
During a visit to the camp, Imam Jabbar had congratulated them for becoming the vanguard of a militant American Islamic movement that would someday reach millions of young men in America's urban centers who'd been oppressed by whites and Jews for far too long. Inspired by the legend of the Al-Aqsa Mosque Brigade, they would rise, "an Army of Allah," and with their brothers-in-jihad overseas defeat the West's decadence and bring about a new era.
At inspirational night meetings, they swore on the Qur'an to die for each other and the glory of Allah. And for Ajmaani, Suleiman would add to himself.
So he was terribly disappointed when the brigade was divided into two groups, each with a separate mission, and he was assigned to the group that would be lead by The Sheik, not Ajmaani. When he complained, she rubbed his shoulder and said she understood, but he should look at it as a reward.
"Because you have been true," she said, "you have been given the greater honor of going on jihad with The Sheik." She'd looked around to make sure none of the others were in hearing range before confiding that of the two missions, his was the more important. "It may well be that the success of the entire plan may ultimately depend on you."
Abdalla blushed with pride but said he would still rather die with her. It was the closest he'd ever come to expressing feelings for a woman, and as soon as he said it he cringed, fearing that she would laugh.
&
nbsp; However, Ajmaani smiled. "We will die together," she promised. "But in two different places. Now can you do that for me, Suleiman?"
He nodded his head and murmured "Inshalhh," thinking that he sounded romantically fatalistic.
"Yes," she responded. "As God wills."
Toward the end of their stay in camp, they received a visit from the man they were told to call The Sheik. He delivered a brief inspirational speech in which he told them that their sacrifice would "change the world." In such a world, men of color and faith would rule, and whites and Jews would be their slaves.
Abdalla was thrilled to be introduced to The Sheik. But then he felt like someone had punched him in the stomach when the man looked at him with distaste. "What is the matter with your skin?" he asked bluntly.
"It is a disorder of the skin that he cannot help," Imam Jabbar explained. "Ajmaani says that he is the most apt of the jihadis."
That Ajmaani spoke so highly of him to such important people made Abdalla dismiss what The Sheik said. He didn't care what this Arab thought so long as Ajmaani considered him her most apt pupil.
However, Abdalla's jealousy reared its head when he heard that Ajmaani's team would be joined by the great Azahari Mujahid. They'd been told about his achievements while working on the suicide vests that he'd designed.
"Why can't I be in your group?" Abdalla whined when he had a moment alone with Ajmaani one evening. "I want to die with you and Tatay."
This time, instead of offering a smile and reassurance, she struck him. And not a mere slap from a woman, but a powerful backhand that knocked him to the floor.
"There is no more time to coddle you, Abdalla," she hissed. "Do as you are told and do not complain again."
Abdalla nodded and waited until she left the room to get back up. He no longer hoped that one of his virgins would look like Ajmaani.
In mid-August they'd been loaded back on the bus and driven back to Harlem, again arriving late at night. As the men filtered back into the community, they answered questions about where they'd been as vaguely as possible. Some simply shrugged and said they'd been around, just busy. Others said they'd been working out of state. A few said they'd been on a spiritual retreat with other young Muslims.
Many of the congregation thought that wherever they'd been, these young men had grown and matured. They noted that the young men never missed their prayers and seemed content to let others argue about politics, declining even to enter debates over Israel and Palestine. Nor did they speak any longer of jihad.
A passing fancy, their families thought with relief. The elders at the mosque nodded in satisfaction; perhaps the late-night meetings studying the Qur'an had been a good thing after all.
Several days before he began his vigil at the dock, Abdalla had gone home to see his parents. They'd been estranged ever since he'd joined the mosque and changed his name, so he wasn't sure what he was hoping for or the reception he would get.
Dinner started off tensely when he refused a glass of red wine, saying it was against the teaching of the Qur'an. His father rolled his eyes, and they hardly spoke during the meal. Afterward, his mother had patted him twice on the head and then gone to bed complaining of a headache even though it was barely six o'clock.
At his father's request, Abdalla had followed him into his study, where the older man sat in his leather chair with a snifter full of cognac while his son sipped at a glass of water. "So," his father began, slapping the arms of his chair as if to start an unpleasant but necessary negotiation. "When do you expect to be done with this nonsense?"
"What do you mean?"
Dr. Rhodes shrugged. "I mean you're getting older and this constant 'finding yourself' is getting tiresome. You spend all of your time with ghetto niggers who don't even belong to the same church you were born into. They're not part of the culture your mother and I raised you in."
"My culture?" Abdalla scowled. "You mean the culture that was crammed down my ancestors' throats after they were tom from Africa in chains and their religion taken from them?"
The doctor scoffed. "Ah yes, the evils of slavery," he snorted. "Well, hate to tell you—and I'm not condoning it—but the end result was that this family isn't running around in the jungle, trying to avoid genocidal warfare, most of it propagated by Muslims, on that dark and benighted continent. We're Christians in this family, and have been for over two hundred years."
"There is no God but God, and Muhammad is his messenger," Abdalla retorted.
Abdalla's father looked at him for a minute and then sighed. "Whatever ... I don't really care what religion you ascribe to—cut the heads off of chickens and paint yourself with their blood for all I care. However, I do think it's time you thought about your future. It's not too late to finish college and get into med school. Who knows? Perhaps you could be the one who cures your affliction."
Somewhere in Abdalla's mind he knew that his father, however insensitive, had meant that in a positive way. But he didn't have to like it. "Allah made me this way," he said, standing up. "And that means I am perfect because Allah does not create imperfection."
Dr. Rhodes furrowed his brow. "So did Allah create cancer?" he asked. "And does that mean cancer is perfect and that I should not try to save people from it? And if God created vitiligo, was it because He wanted to make your life miserable ... to have you spend it as some sort of freak?"
As soon as he said it, Dr. Rhodes regretted it. But there was no opportunity to take it back. His boy blinked back the tears and walked out.
"Wait, son," the father called out. It was too late; his son was gone. Abdalla ran out of the building and took off south on Madison Avenue, wiping at the tears and cursing anyone whose eyes met his. "What are you looking at?" he screamed at one woman who asked if he was all right. "I'm not some helpless freak." He finally ran out of steam when he reached 29th Street. Realizing where he was, he veered left until he found himself standing outside Il Buon Pane.
It was late, well past closing time, but as he looked in the window, he saw Moishe Sobelman emerging from the back wiping flour off of his hands. The old man looked up at the window and squinted, as if trying to see who stood there in the dark outside. He started to smile, but then Abdalla took off running.
He caught a taxi back to the mosque where he had a cot in the basement. This is where I belong, he thought as he fell asleep. This is where God is telling me to be.
Despite the backhand from Ajmaani, she apparently still trusted him more than she trusted the others. He'd been given the honor of picking up Azahari Mujahid from the ship and bringing him back to the mosque.
"The car you drive won't attract attention," Ajmaani assured him. "The license plates are valid and all the lights work. Just follow the traffic laws and don't get pulled over. If you do, wait for the police officer to approach, and if he seems suspicious, detonate your vest of martyrdom."
Abdalla looked over at the cumbersome vest that lay on the seat next to him and then at his watch. It was 6 a.m. The vest was uncomfortable to wear, but he decided that he should put it on now, as the call he was waiting for could come at any moment.
In fact, he'd barely slipped into the vest, fastened it, and then slipped on a sweatshirt when the cell phone rang and he flipped it open to answer.
"Most Gracious, Most Merciful; Master of the Day of Judgment," said an accented male voice.
"Thee do we worship," he replied, "and Thine aid we seek." He closed the cell phone. It was the signal to pick up his passenger.
As he pulled up to the gate, a tall, well-tanned man appeared and let him in. The man pointed him in the right direction, and he drove forward and down the docks until reaching the Star of Vladivostok, where the guard signaled for him to stop. He didn't have to wait long before two men hurried down the gangplank and jumped into the backseat.
"Salaam, Assalamu Alikum," Abdalla greeted the men.
"Assalamu Alikum Wa Rahmatulah Wa Barakatuh," said one. Abdalla assumed he was Azahari Mujahid by the way the other d
eferred to him.
"Are you the only ones?" Abdalla asked. "I thought there'd be more."
Mujahid met his eyes in the rearview mirror. "How many do you think I need?"
Now that's the face of a stone-cold, killer, Abdalla thought and asked no further questions.
Crossing the Manhattan Bridge, they'd reached Third Avenue and turned north when a police car suddenly pulled in behind them, lights flashing. Abdalla's hand slipped beneath his sweatshirt and felt for the pager that was attached to his martyr's vest. But as he slowed to pull over, the police car swerved around him and went on.
Still sweating the close call, Abdalla was happy to pull through the security gate at the mosque and drive into the underground parking structure. There they were met by Imam Jabbar and his bodyguards, who led them to one of the basement rooms.
As they entered, Ajmaani stood and said, "Salaam. Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture as believe not in Allah nor the Last Day..."
"And forbid not that which Allah hath forbidden by His messenger, and follow not the Religion of Truth," Mujahid said.
Ajmaani appeared to relax. "Praise be to Allah," she said, "the Cherisher and Sustainer of the worlds."
Mujahid turned to his companion and said something in a language that Abdalla didn't know. Faster than his eye was able to follow it, the second man struck one of Imam Jabbar's bodyguards in the throat. He pulled the man's gun from its shoulder holster before he even hit the ground. In the next instant, he had the gun trained on Ajmaani while the other bodyguards were still fumbling for their weapons.
"That was not the correct response," Mujahid snarled. "We have been betrayed!"
Abdalla didn't know what to do and thought it was all going to end badly. But then Ajmaani held up her hands and smiled. "Please forgive me, Sheik Mujahid. I apologize for the deception, but I am under orders to be extremely careful and test repeatedly to make sure our friends are who they say they are. The response you're looking for is, of course, the completion of the verse from the Qur'an. I should have said, 'Until they pay the tribute readily, being brought low.'"
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